Family of grandmother attacked by nurse to file suit against Bronx nursing home

By MICHAEL J. FEENEY

|NEW YORK DAILY NEWS|

May 18, 2014 | 2:00 AM

Norma Rosario was brutally attacked at Bronx Park Rehabilitation and Nursing Center on Jan. 4, one day before her 73rd birthday.

The family of a helpless Bronx grandmother who was brutally pushed and bloodied in a Williamsbridge nursing home plans to file a civil suit against the facility, their lawyer told the Daily News.

Norma Rosario suffered the vicious treatment on Jan. 4. — a day before her 73rd birthday — at Bronx Park Rehabilitation and Nursing Center, which will be named in the suit.

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"The family entrusts this lady into their care and look what happens to her," said attorney Adam Slater, who plans to file the suit in Bronx County Supreme Court on Tuesday. "She winds up with staples in her head."

Rosemarie Brooks, the nurse who was arrested and criminally charged in the incident, will also be named in the suit, Slater said.

Brooks, 47, was captured on surveillance video violently pushing Rosario out of a room and into a door across the hallway at the Carpenter Ave. nursing home.

Rosario, who suffers from dementia, hit her head against the door and fell to the floor, and had to receive staples to close the laceration, according to a criminal court complaint.

Brooks was charged with endangering the welfare of a vulnerable elderly person and falsifying records. She is due to appear in Bronx criminal court on June 13.

The family accuses the nursing home of breaching its duty.

Rosemarie Brooks, the nurse accused of attacking Norma Rosario, will be named in the civil suit, which will be filed Tuesday. (HANDOUT)

"I'm upset. That's my mom," said Rosario's daughter Jeannette Castillo, 44. "I put my mother somewhere for help, and this is what they do to her."

An administrator at Bronx Park Rehabiliation and Nursing Center did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Castillo said her mother, who is a grandmother to 19, is now staying at Pelham Parkway Nursing Home, but the attack had a lingering effect.

"She was scared of the nurses," her daughter said of the new facility. "She was scared to let anyone comb her hair."

Brooks told police that Rosario tried to attack her, but prosecutors said she falsified the report she gave to the nursing home, to cover up the incident.

"Thank goodness it was caught on video," said Slater.

The family is seeking "significant" monetary damages, Slater said, but he declined to specify the amount.